Nancy Dolls by Famosa

I am still having a bit of a hard time getting around, and so my "field research" has taken a hit.  The nice thing is, I always seem to have a stash of dolls sitting around that I purchased ages ago but haven't reviewed for one reason or another.  This week, I decided to raid that stash of forgotten dolls and I rediscovered the two Nancy dolls I bought back in 2013.  Nancy is a 16-inch plastic play doll produced by the Spanish company, Famosa.  Famosa makes a wide range of dolls and toys and has partnerships with some popular brands like Furby, Hello Kitty and My Little Pony.  Currently, Famosa might be best known in the United States for their Pinypon line of small dolls and accessories--toys I'd really like to review some day!

I first learned about Nancy dolls in 2012 from Moni, through a comment she left on an old review.  I was reminded of this doll again in 2013 when I started to explore the many different options in the 18-inch play doll market.  Nancy stands out from this crowd because she's smaller and shorter than dolls like American Girl, and also because of her price point.  Nancy dolls tend to retail for between $20 and $25--unless they are discontinued and difficult to find.

Nancy dolls come with a few different hair and eye color options (there's a lovely-looking redhead, but she's hard to find here in the States).  There are also two skin tones that I am aware of.  Most (all?) of the dolls sold in this country have a tan-looking yellowish skin tone, but there are also dark-skinned Nancy dolls available--like the gorgeous Nancy gracing the product page of the Famosa website.  Another variation in the Nancy line is that some of the dolls have articulated knees and others do not.  In this review, I will look at one of each style: the unarticulated Nancy "Pink Sports Ballerina" ($19.99, Amazon) and the articulated Nancy "Little Red Riding Hood" ($24.99, Amazon):

Famosa's "Little Red Riding Hood" Nancy.

Famosa has been making toys since 1957 and the Nancy doll debuted in 1968, almost 50 years ago.  These dolls were very popular in Spain during the 70s and 80s and had a very different appearance back then.  I think the vintage Nancy dolls resemble older Madame Alexander dolls to some degree.

The current Nancy dolls are slightly tricky to find in this country, but Amazon, Walmart and a few other retailers carry a limited supply.  I had the most fun browsing the selection at the online Spanish shop, Puppen Toys, and really wish international shipping wasn't so high!

I selected the ballerina doll and Little Red Riding Hood mostly because they were the least expensive dolls available through Amazon, but also because they had the most appealing coloring from what I could see online.  I'll show you the ballerina first, and then look at the more elaborate fairy tale doll at the end of the review.

Ballerina Nancy comes in a large plastic box with a cardboard back and sides:

I bought this doll quite a long time ago, and I have to admit that I postponed the review because when I first saw her in person, the shape of her face and the color of her vinyl did not make a good impression.  She has very large eyes and facial features that are different from the other dolls I own.  She seemed a little otherworldly to me at first:

Nancy is posed in the box with one leg bent, which made it much easier to be certain that she has the body style with articulated knees.  The articulated knees seem much rarer than the straight-legged dolls.

The cardboard on the back and the sides of the box is decorated with pictures of the other dolls in the Pink Sports series.

There's a skier, a ballerina and a horseback rider:

The other dolls look nice, and I am encouraged to see the equestrienne--she suggests that the articulated leg design might allow the dolls to sit on horses.

I like the sports theme of this line, but it certainly has a lot of pink, and all of the dolls have similar (if not identical) blonde/blue coloring.

Nancy is attached to a cardboard backdrop that slides out of the main box.  The backdrop is attached to the sides of the outer box with a series of small plastic tabs that have to be freed before the doll can be pulled out.

Nancy comes with her soft ballet slippers packaged up next to her head:

Her legs have white tights and pink leg warmers that are pulled down over her feet:

The ballet slippers are bright pink and made out of a thin, soft satiny fabric.  They have a pink bow decoration in front and an elastic band that is meant to go around the doll's ankle.

The bottoms of the slippers are made out of a delicate-looking white mesh (with a hole from a packaging tie):

I wasn't really sure what to do with the ballet shoes and the leg warmers together, so I pulled the leg warmers up and slipped the shoes on over the tights.  This looks fine from the front, but it seems the leggings have holes at the back for the doll's heels, and so this arrangement looks pretty funny from the back:

These are called "stirrup legwarmers" and are a real thing.

Here's Nancy completely removed from her box.  

She can stand on her own, but her balance isn't great.  It seems like perhaps one of her legs is longer than the other.

Nancy's long, thick blonde hair is tied back into a ponytail and decorated with a pink headband.  

She has tendrils of hair on either side of her face that are held in position with clear rubber bands and plastic ties that go into the leotard:

Nancy's face is dominated by her large, wide-set blue eyes and extremely long eyelashes.  She has a proportionally small lower face.

The inset plastic eyes are blue with pale flecks and a few black lines.  They look quite realistic, especially from a distance.

Not only are the eyelashes long, but they have an extraordinary shape--sticking straight out before curling upwards towards the forehead.

Some of the Nancy dolls have darker eyelashes than these, and I find the combination of length and dark color a bit overwhelming.

Nancy has full lips with very little color in them--just a slight gloss.

I have noticed that many of the Nancy dolls have brighter, opaque colors on their lips and I do not like these dolls as much as the ones with more subtle coloring--especially when combined with the super-thick lashes.

Nancy has shapely lips that turn upwards into a smile at the very edges.

The pink headband was attached to Nancy's head with plastic ties.  I managed to remove it without cutting any of the hair, but it was tricky.  Those plastic ties were tight.  The headband is a very sturdy piece with finished edges and a section of thick elastic in the back that makes it easy to put on (and stay on!).

Underneath the headband, Nancy has a well-rooted hairline (there are no surprises):

Although the headband leaves behind a few thin areas of hair near the ears.

To take the hair completely down, I had to remove two clear rubber bands from the back, and both rubber bands and plastic ties from the tendrils on either side of the face.  

The hair was a little messy after all of that rubber band removal, but the biggest problem was that it had an incredible amount of static electricity.

I mean, I have never seen hair quite as electrified as this!  Brushing just made it worse.  Way worse:

Shocking.

The hair has a tightly-rooted center part at the top, but the hair on my doll's part was flipped over to one side, exposing the less densely-rooted areas underneath:

Overall, the hair is reasonably well-rooted, with a denser hair pattern towards the bottom of the head, in the part, and around the hairline.  It feels nice and thick overall.

Here's the top of the head after I fixed the part:

I abandoned my wire brush and ended up smoothing the hair down with my hands.  It was really impossible to tame any other way.  I am hoping it was just the dry winter weather here in Maine that was making this hair so unruly!

The hair is mostly blonde, but it does have some light brown lowlights--especially on the doll's left side.

Nancy is wearing unremovable white plastic earring studs:

She also has a brand mark on the back of her neck:

Nancy's outfit is pretty simple and consists of a pink stretchy leotard, a pink wrap-around skirt, white knit tights, stirrup leg warmers and ballet slippers.

The skirt has a tie-dyed pattern and a satin ribbon waistband trim:

The edges of the skirt and leotard are finished with a zigzag stitch, and the top of the leotard has a pink satin ribbon decoration:

The wrap-around skirt unties for easy removal:

Here's the full pink leotard:

I like the fabric this leotard is made out of.  It feels like stretchy swimsuit material and is easy to get on and off.  The construction is also great, with wide seam allowances to withstand all of the stretching.

The leg warmers are rib knit and have gathers along the back which seem designed to shape the warmers to the doll's calf:

I think ballerinas must wear this kind of leg warmer over their ballet shoes (to keep their feet warm?), as they certainly don't fit under the shoes!

The shoes fit over just the tights, though:

And here are the white tights on their own:

Nancy has a hard hollow plastic torso with softer vinyl arms, legs and head.  She has seven points of articulation:

Her vinyl arms are actually quite flexible, which makes dressing and undressing easy to do.

Nancy's head articulation is simple and does not allow for any up-and-down movement:

She looks increasingly upwards as she turns her head to the back:

The soft arms also have simple rotational movement.  On my doll, the arm placement is a little different on each side, with the left arm closer to the body than the right.  This positioning is exacerbated when the doll's arms are lifted:

Nancy's hips also have simple rotational movement, so Nancy can only sit on the ground with her upper legs out to the side:

She can also do excellent front-to-back splits:

The knees have the most interesting articulation on the whole doll.  They have a ball-shaped joint with rotation at the top of the joint.

This allows Nancy to stand with her toes rotated in or out:

She can also strike some great walking and running poses:

And even do something that looks a bit like ballet (although pointed toes would help here):

Nancy is not especially elegant at sitting on a chair (or on a box, as the case may be...):

But her knee joints allow for some good ground-sitting poses:

She can't kneel very well, though, since her knees don't quite bend all of the way to 90 degrees:

This was the most creative pose I could think of for Nancy, and she's even balancing on her own:

Nancy is quite a bit shorter and slimmer than most 18-inch dolls.  Here she is next to my American Girl, Keira:

Famosa Nancy, American Girl.

The slim 18-inch dolls are more similar in proportion to Nancy, but even they are all bigger in one way or another:

Left to right: Kidz 'n' Cats Evita, Famosa Nancy, Girl for All Time Clementine, Double Dutch Zaria.

The shape of Nancy's body is most similar to the Double Dutch doll, Zaria, but her hips are small like A Girl for All Time's Clementine.  I don't imagine that a lot of clothes sharing will be possible among these dolls, since even Zaria's shorts were huge on Nancy:

I thought perhaps a B.F.C. Ink doll might be closer in size to Nancy:

B.F.C. Ink Kaitlin, Famosa Nancy.

Even B.F.C. Kaitlin is larger than Nancy, but these two are probably the closest in overall size of the dolls I own in this scale.  The biggest difference is in their arm length.  Look at how short Nancy's arms are in comparison!

Nancy's arms are way too short.

These two can share clothes quite well, but the B.F.C. sleeves are too long for Nancy:

While I had Nancy dressed in leggings, I tested her horse riding ability....which is pretty good:

She's nicely in scale with this Paradise horse and just needs a saddle with adjustable stirrups!

The last size comparison I want to make is with a Hearts for Hearts doll:

Famosa Nancy, Hearts for Hearts Consuelo.

I thought that maybe these two would have similarly-sized torsos, at least, but Consuelo is quite a bit smaller.  Except for her arms--they're longer than Nancy's, but that's not hard to do!

Consuelo's clothes fit on Nancy, but the skirt is very short and the top doesn't close very well in back:

Because Nancy's leotard is stretchy, it almost looks like it fits Consuelo, but it's still pretty baggy, and the tights are way too long:

Ok, so it's probably overkill to review two Nancy dolls in one post, but I didn't feel like the ballerina Nancy alone was a good representation of the line's potential.  Ballerina Nancy has articulated knees, which are great, but her outfit is simpler than the clothes on many of the other dolls.  

To show what a more complex Nancy outfit is like, I decided to review the Little Red Riding Hood doll from the fairy tales series:

I like this doll's darker coloring, with her brown hair and green eyes:

I also like the outfit's silly interpretation of the Little Red Riding Hood theme, with crazy little cartoon wolves all over the front of the dress:

There's even a plastic grinning wolf figure that comes with the doll:

This doll comes in a rounded plastic box with a cardboard back.  The back is mostly hot pink and is decorated with photographs of two of the dolls in this series:

In addition to Red Riding Hood, there's a brown-eyed Alice in Wonderland doll available (she's hard to find).  I think there is (was?) also a Snow White character in this series, but she's not pictured on the box.  You can see a wonderful picture of her here.

The text at the top of the box reads, "I invent fairy tales with Nancy Fairy Tale Outfits."  

The text at the bottom of the box reads "la mas bonitas" or "the prettiest."  I don't know...that seems a little presumptive to me.  Brings to mind a certain evil queen and her mirror.

Like the other Nancy, this doll is attached to a cardboard backdrop that slides out of the main box after a few tabs have been released.  She is secured to the backdrop with wires and a few irritating little plastic ties.

This doll's backdrop is an iridescent green color:

She comes with a wolf figure, a purse, and what looks like a little storybook.

Here's everything removed from the box:

The little story book accessory looked adorable to me at first and I was excited to read it.  It is made out of cardboard and has a clear window on the front cover that reveals a scene with the doll and the grinning wolf:

Unfortunately, rather than being a book, this is just a fold-out pamphlet advertising the dolls:

It's interesting that the Alice in Wonderland in the book has blue eyes, but the Alice shown on the back of the box has brown eyes.  Perhaps there were two different versions of the doll?  It's the same picture in each case, though, which means that one of the dolls had her eyes colored artificially.

The wolf figure that comes with this set is a little strange.  He is made out of hard plastic and has a flat back with some sort of upside-down clip on it:

The wolf's red and white striped legs are bendy, and so he can be posed in several different positions:

This doll also comes with a red fuzzy purse that matches her coat:

The body of the purse is a shiny red synthetic material with a few fabric flower decorations.  The base of the purse is made out of pink-ish red fur:

Now, let's take a look at the doll herself.  To avoid confusion with the first Nancy I showed you, I will call this girl Red:

Red is wearing a multi-piece outfit with a complicated-looking jacket and hood.  

Some of her hair is worn in braided pigtails, but there's also a long section of hair coming out from underneath the hood and hanging down in back.

The hood and jacket are actually two separate pieces that connect with plastic snaps.  There's a snap on either side of the jacket's collar:

These are large snaps, but they're red so that they blend in nicely with the jacket and hood.

The hood is well-constructed with two layers of shiny red fabric and sturdy finished edges.  It is trimmed with the same pinkish fur that is on the purse:

Here's the jacket with the hood removed:

It's a cute little bolero jacket with a fur-lined collar and red bow accents.  The jacket closes partially in front with a chain of white beads.  This chain has to be unsnapped before the jacket can be removed.

The snap that holds the chain is less sturdy and a bit more noticeable than the snaps that hold the hood in place.  It is a clear square snap:

The jacket is not lined, but it looks well-made.  The front edges are folded over with a generous seam allowance so that the jacket tends to hang nicely and not suffer from flimsy rolling edges.

The sleeves are cuffed and have red bow accents on them:

The chain of beads in the front of the jacket is a little strange.  The beads are wrapped in black tulle with knots in between each bead.  I think the chain would have had a nicer shape if the beads were strung and allowed to hang in a graceful arc.  This style of construction is probably sturdier, though. 

With the jacket and hood removed, it's easier to see Red's hair, face and dress:

She has the same face mold and skin tone as the ballerina Nancy, but she has dark brown hair, green eyes and red earrings.  This doll's eyes look a little wonky to me:

She has the same very long eyelashes and iris pattern as the other doll:

Red's lips have a bit more color in them than the other Nancy, but they're still very pale with a glossy coat:

Red's hair is parted on the side and the front sections are pulled into braided pigtails:

The back of the hair is complex, with a small ponytail near the top, some hair from the sides pulled back underneath that, and then the rest of the hair pulled into a large ponytail at the bottom:

The pigtails are tied off in two places--the higher of which is decorated with a pink satin ribbon:

Here's the hair with the large ponytail let down:

And with the side pigtails removed:

The hair is a beautiful natural color with some blonde highlights.  It doesn't have anywhere near the static trouble that the other doll's hair has for some reason.  

Here's the hair after a good brushing:

It's a little easier to see the rooting pattern on this doll because of her dark hair.  Like the other Nancy, the hair looks thin on top, but feels nice and thick overall:

I really like how Red's side part looks when all of her hair is pulled back into a simple ponytail:

Red's dress is made out of shiny white fabric.  It looks a little cheap but is soft and satiny, not stiff like some of the doll clothing that has this shiny appearance.

Most of the details on the dress are great, but the seams around the sleeves look like they are under some stress:

The fullness of the skirt is due to a lace-trimmed tulle petticoat that is attached to the dress:

The tulle from this underskirt gets caught on the velcro seam at the back of the dress.  This is pretty frustrating:

The dress has six cartoon wolves printed on the front.  These wolves are pretty funny--they have mismatched googly eyes, a massive overbite, and they're covered in hearts.  I think it's meant to be very clear that they are not Big Bad Wolves, but harmless, loving creatures:

Batty Benevolent wolves.

The waistline and hem of the dress have a lovely ribbon and lace trim:

The petticoat has a tulle ruffle at the very bottom, making the skirt even more full:

 Under her skirt, Red is wearing red and white striped tights and little felt rabbit shoes:

The tights have a tiny row of silver thread in between the red and white stripes:

A touch of Christmas elf couture.

The felt shoes are adorable.  These (especially paired with the striped tights) actually make me think more of Alice in Wonderland than Red Riding Hood:

The ear edges and eyes are actually embroidered into the shoes:

The better to see you with.

The problem with the shoes is that the felt is very soft, and so the heels collapse when I try to put the shoes back onto the doll's feet.  It's very, very hard to get these shoes on properly, which is too bad because I really love how they look.

The wolf dress also fits B.F.C. Kaitlin pretty well, although it's quite short:

Red's body has the same shape and design as the ballerina Nancy, but she is missing knee articulation.  This doll's arms are also set at different distances away from the body, although in this case it's the left arm that's higher:

Furthermore, the unarticulated legs are made out of hollow hard plastic rather than vinyl.  They look and feel significantly lower in quality than the other Nancy doll's limbs, and the movement at the hip joint is quite stiff compared to the ballerina.

Here are the two girls together:

You can see the slight difference in lip color here, and also that Red's eyelashes are just a bit shorter.  I think Nancy's face looks fuller than Red's, but it's probably just due to the difference in hair color.

Because I slightly prefer Red's darker coloring and strongly prefer Ballerina Nancy's articulated knees, I wanted to see if it would be possible to swap heads on these two.

It's pretty simple to pull the head off of the body--even without any softening of the vinyl ahead of time:

The head has a hole that fits over a ball at the top of the neck, but there's also a thin skin of vinyl inside the head that has another smaller hole that encircles a peg at the very top of the neck:

Here's a view up into the head:

And here's the body with the head removed:

The peg at the top of the neck is a little warped and tipped back, which I think makes this particular doll's head tip upwards a bit more than it should.

Here's Red's head on the more articulated body:

With her new and improved body, I put Red back into her original outfit for a few more pictures.  She does look upwards more now than she used to:

The hood takes some getting used to, but it has a nice dramatic effect:

The design of the hood works well with a single ponytail hairstyle since the ponytail can tuck in between the back of the hood and the collar of the jacket.

As much fun as the hood is, I think I like the outfit best with just the dress and the jacket:

I have even grown to like the odd beaded chain that closes the jacket:

Red's wolf wanted to make a last appearance, too, although I still haven't figured out what the backwards clip on the back of his body is for or what exactly he's meant to do: 

Besides prance around and grinning....

Maybe he's just meant to cuddle on Red's lap?

I also like Red with her hair down, and I can't quite decide if I want to boil out the waves from her old braids or not:

The blonde Nancy thought it was only fair that if Red got to try out her body, she ought to be allowed to try Red's outfit.  

I think it looks very nice on her:

The red hood and jacket compliment her fair complexion better than I thought they would:

Although it is pretty hard to manage the long loose hair with the hood in place:

In the end, I decided to put both of the Nancy dolls back onto their original bodies and back into their original outfits:

Bottom line?  I am glad I finally got these two dolls out of their boxes.  They did not impress me very much when they first arrived, but I have come to appreciate many things about them, especially for dolls of this size and for this price.

The three negative things that struck me when I first saw the dolls in person were their size, their vinyl color, and their facial features.  At 16 inches, the Nancy dolls are smaller than most other play dolls in this general size range.  I expected them to be at least as tall as the B.F.C. Ink girls, but they are shorter and more petite.  Nancy can't share clothes with many other dolls in my house, and she's much smaller than American Girl-sized lines, but her size seems more acceptable to me now--maybe even preferable for younger children.  The vinyl color grabbed my attention because it has a spray-tan yellow tinge that I don't think looks very natural.  Even after spending some time with these dolls, I still find the vinyl color a little off-putting--especially when Nancy is posed or displayed next to dolls with more natural coloring.  The facial features were the last thing about these dolls that I didn't love right away.  The faces looked quite elfin or alien to me at first--probably because the face is so dominated by oversized eyes.  At this point, I have grown used to the Nancy face and think the dolls look sweet.  I still don't think Nancy is "the prettiest," but I appreciate her uniqueness.

I think the best qualities of the Nancy dolls are their hair, the soft vinyl portions of their bodies, the knee articulation (when present), and the clothing.  While the hair is rooted a little thinly near the top of the head, the fiber feels smooth and soft and my dolls have lovely realistic two-toned colors in their hair.  The plastic torsos on these dolls feel cheap, but the softer vinyl parts of the body are nice.  I like how the bendable arms make dressing and undressing so easy and only wish the arms were a more reasonable length.  The ballerina Nancy, with her articulated vinyl legs, has a much higher-quality feel to her than the Red Riding Hood doll with her hollow plastic legs.  I only wish Famosa would put the softer articulated legs on all of their dolls.  When I was shopping for these two, I felt like I had to choose between a doll with a better body design and a doll with better clothing.  Ballerina Nancy's outfit isn't bad, in fact, it is made very well--and out of appropriate, good-quality fabrics.  It would be a wonderful choice for a child who enjoys ballet.  However, the simple leotard and tights are not as fun to me as the more unique Red Riding Hood costume.  The Red Riding Hood outfit has a lot of quirky details, from the silly printed wolves on the skirt to the adorable felt bunny shoes.  I also love the versatile construction of the hooded jacket.  The number of outfit pieces and the quality of those pieces are better than what I have come to expect from a $20 doll.

There aren't a huge number of economical options for dolls in this size range, especially with the B.F.C. Ink dolls discontinued.  In the under $30 price category, I'd say the biggest Nancy competitors in the United States are probably the Our Generation, My Life As and Hearts for Hearts dolls--especially now that the Hearts for Hearts price has dropped to $24.99.  Of those options, I definitely prefer the Hearts for Hearts dolls.  However, the Nancy line certainly has a lot to offer for the price.  Sadly, the selection of Nancy dolls in this country is quite limited, and I don't see any other dolls that have a combination of features and clothing that I would want to purchase.  In Europe, the options are more varied and--were those dolls readily available here--I might be tempted into collecting a few more of these unusual Spanish sweeties.